Suspended Sediment Transport in the Storglaciären Drainage Basin

The mean annual suspended sediment load in the Storglaciaren drainage basin is estimated to be 5.74x 106 kg yr71. Assuming, that erosion and sedimentation in the proglacial area is in balance, the specific suspended sediment transport from Storglaciaren amounts to 1.85 x 106 kg km'2 yr'1, which corresponds to an annual erosion of 0.7 mm. Adding estimated contributions by bedload, total annual erosion becomes 0.9-1.3 mm. The transport of suspended sediment in the proglacial stream is characterised by a time lag between peaks in suspended sediment concentration and peaks in water discharge and the flushing of material during flood events, followed by periods of low sediment transport. These patterns were found at diurnal, seasonal and annual time scales. A linear regression analysis of logarithmically transformed suspended sediment concentration and water discharge data yields good results, despite systematic underestimation of real suspended load. This underestimation most probably occurs because mobilisation of fine-grained material by rainstorms is ignored.